Girls Who Build: Eco Homes Finale

On Tuesday 1st July 2025, TECgirls hosted our third Eco Homes Build Day at Mount Pleasant Eco Park in Porthtowan. This brilliant day marked the finale of our 8-week Eco Homes Mentor Afterschool Club, which seven primary schools from across Cornwall took part in this term.

Over the past two months, the girls have been learning to code BBC micro:bits to act as eco sensors. Week by week, they explored how technology can support more environmentally friendly living, building their skills and confidence as they programmed air quality monitors, temperature sensors and soil moisture prongs and much more.

The Build Day brought together 60 girls for a full-on, hands-on experience. It was a chance to work collaboratively and bring everything they had learnt to life. As well as completing their eco-home builds, we also introduced conversations around future careers, helping the girls imagine a world of possibility in STEM, engineering and AI. The message was clear: there are no limits to what they can do.

The atmosphere in the barn was amazing, full of creativity, excitement and energy. Throughout the day, the girls:

• Built and decorated their model eco-homes

• Installed and tested their coded micro:bit sensors

• Brought their homes to life with lights, wallpaper, furniture and more

• Explored elements of architecture, interior design and power systems

• Learnt about future career paths in tech, engineering and sustainability

  
  

We were absolutely blown away by the originality, engineering skills and creativity on show. Each eco-home was completely unique, filled with thoughtful details, clever features and a real sense of pride. The students’ enthusiasm for technology, design and sustainability was superb!

A massive thank you goes to the brilliant volunteers who supported us throughout the club and joined us on the Build Day. Their help was invaluable, and a couple of them kindly shared their reflections:

“All the students appeared to have a great time and for the most part were totally engrossed in being creative. Which made it a rewarding experience for me as a volunteer.” – Andrew

“The TECgirl (and TECwomen) events have been a pleasure to attend and volunteer with. I’ve learnt so much and it’s helped me to be more confident in other areas of my life. Thank you for the opportunity and support.” – Anna Claxton

We also received some lovely feedback from teachers:

“A massive thanks again for yesterday, to you and the whole team. What a fantastic event and the children loved it. Really buzzing about future careers and teamwork that they demonstrated.” – Sam Goward, Porthleven School

“We all had a great time on the Microbits and had sounds, lights, pictures, messages working etc. They all know Scratch so there is a lot of overlap in skills which was good. Enjoyed your input and instructions at the start.”

We are so proud to have run this club and Build Day for the third time, and we are already looking forward to the next one. A huge thank you to all the schools, teachers, families and volunteers who made it possible, and most of all to the brilliant girls who took part and showed us just how exciting the future of green tech and STEM can be.